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Date: 11/4/2020
SOUTHWICK – On Southwick’s 250th anniversary on Nov. 7, the town will celebrate the day with a procession around town and a virtual picnic to support local restaurants.
Jim Putnam, the Southwick 250th Anniversary Committee chair, said that as part of the day’s festivities, the town will be doing a procession like the one done for students after graduation.
“We’re going to a drive around at 2 p.m. with the leadership of our Southwick Police Department, so we’re going to take the trolley and up to 25 volunteer vehicles on a drive through of the neighborhoods on the east and west sides of town. It’s going to be like the event that was done for the high school graduates in June,” he said.
The procession is anticipated to last for two hours.
Along with the drive by procession, Putnam said residents are encouraged to join the All Day Virtual picnic by picking up take out from local restaurants and watch a presentation on Channel 15 or online on Facebook.
“We’re going to hold a virtual picnic so we’re going to promote our restaurants and other establishments to offer special food, beverages, and any other type of special they would like. This idea of promoting our restaurants to sell take out food for people to bring home and watch our video presentation seems like a pretty good effort,” he said.
The committee will also promote restaurants that have specials for the anniversary on its Facebook page and residents can participate in the picnic all day when they pick up food from local restaurants.
In a press release for the event it said the video presentation will include photos from the 250th Anniversary photo contest and other videos of the town.
“It will feature the beautiful images from the 250th Photo Contest, short videos and much more. This will meld with the opportunity to purchase and enjoy take-out foods and beverages from favorite Southwick establishments while watching this presentation … a virtual and actual picnic experience with all who appreciate Southwick,” the press release said.
During the presentation, the winners for the Southwick 250 Photo Contest will be announced.
Putnam also said that they are planning on having the actual parade and another food event in 2021.
“We originally had planned to end our celebration with a taste of Southwick event, obviously we are not able to do that. We’ll have our parade and food event probably sometime next year,” he said.
Despite having to cancel all its in-person events for the year, Putnam said that the town and the committee have adapted well given the current circumstances.
“We had a great plan before all of this came out, we were into it doing some of the events and things changed dramatically. It’s not the first time in 250 years of Southwick history where things came up and had to adapt new circumstances,” he said.
He added that the ability to adapt during these difficult times speaks to the resilience of Southwick residents.
“I look at it as the resilience of our community in a time of a public health challenge. We’re doing what Southwickians have always done, we’re innovating, we’re adjusting and we’re making the best of our circumstances,” Putnam said.